Modern Greek phonology

Greek linguists do not agree on which consonants to count as phonemes in their own right, and which to count as conditional allophones. The table below is adapted from Arvaniti (2007, p. 7), who considers the palatals and both affricates, [t͡s] and [d͡z], to be allophonic.

The alveolar nasal /n/ is assimilated to following obstruents; it can be labiodental (e.g. αμφιβολία [aɱfivoˈlia] 'doubt'), dental (e.g. άνθος [ˈan̪θos] 'flower'), retracted alveolar (e.g. πένσα [ˈpen̠sa] 'pliers'), alveolo-palatal (e.g. συγχύζω [siɲˈçizo] 'to annoy'), or velar (e.g. άγχος [ˈaŋхos] 'stress').[2]

Voiceless stops are unaspirated and with a very short voice onset time.[1] They may be lightly voiced in rapid speech, especially when intervocalic.[3] /t/'s exact place of articulation ranges from alveolar to denti-alveolar, to dental.[4] It may be fricated [θ̠ ~ θ] in rapid speech, and very rarely, in function words, it is deleted.[5] /p/ and /k/ are reduced to lesser degrees in rapid speech.[5]

Voiced stops are prenasalised (which is reflected in the orthography) to varying extents, and sometimes not at all.[6] The nasal component—when present—does not increase the duration of the stop's closure; as such, prenasalised voiced stops would be most accurately transcribed [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ] or [m͡b, n͡d, ŋ͡ɡ], depending on the length of the nasal component.[6] Word-initially and after /r/ or /l/, they are very rarely, if ever, prenasalised.[1][4] In rapid and casual speech, prenasalisation is generally rarer, and voiced stops may be lenited to fricatives.[4] That also accounts for Greeks having trouble disambiguating voiced stops, nasalised voiced stops, and nasalised voiceless stops in borrowings and names from foreign languages such as, d, nd, and nt, which are all written ντ in Greek.

/s/ and /z/ are somewhat retracted ([s̠, z̠]); they are produced in between English alveolars /s, z/ and postalveolars /ʃ, ʒ/. /s/ is variably fronted or further retracted depending on environment, and, in some cases, it may be better described as an advanced postalveolar ([ʃ˖]).[7]

The only Greek rhotic /r/ is prototypically an alveolar tap [ɾ], often retracted ([ɾ̠]). It may be an alveolar approximant [ɹ] intervocalically, and is usually a trill [r] in clusters, with two or three short cycles.[8]

Greek has palatals [c, ɟ, ç, ʝ] which are allophones of the velar consonants /k, ɡ, x, ɣ/ before the front vowels /e, i/. The velars also merge with a following nonsyllabic /i/ to the corresponding palatal before the vowels /a, o, u/, e.g. χιόνι [ˈçoni] (= /ˈxi̯oni/) 'snow', thus producing a surface contrast between palatal and velar consonants before /a, o, u/.[9] [ʎ] and [ɲ] occur as allophones of /l/ and /n/, respectively, in CJV (consonant–glide–vowel) clusters, in analyses that posit an archiphoneme-like glide /J/ that contrasts with the vowel /i/.[10] All palatals may be analysed in the same way. The palatal stops and fricatives are somewhat retracted, and [ʎ] and [ɲ] are somewhat fronted. [ʎ] is best described as a postalveolar, and [ɲ] as alveolo-palatal.[11]

Finally, Greek has two phonetically affricate clusters, [t͡s] and [d͡z].[12] Arvaniti (2007) is reluctant to treat these as phonemes on the grounds of inconclusive research into their phonological behaviour.[13]

The table below, adapted from Arvaniti (2007, p. 25), displays a near-full array of consonant phones in Standard Modern Greek.

The vowels of Standard Modern Greek on a vowel chart. Adapted from Arvaniti (2007, p. 28).

Greek has a system of five vowels /i, u, e, o, a/. The first two have qualities approaching their respective cardinal vowels [i, u], the mid vowels /e, o/ are true-mid [e̞, o̞] and the open /a/ is near-open central [ɐ].[15]

There is no phonemic length distinction, but vowels in stressed syllables are pronounced somewhat longer [iˑ, uˑ, eˑ, oˑ, aˑ] than in unstressed syllables. Furthermore, vowels in stressed syllables are more peripheral, but the difference is not large. In casual speech, unstressed /i/ and /u/ in the vicinity of voiceless consonants may become devoiced or even elided.[16]

Modern Greek retains the fricativization that has existed in many varieties of Greek since at least the first century BCE.[18] The phonetic values of ⟨αυ⟩, ⟨ευ⟩ and ⟨ηυ⟩ are /av/, /ev/ and /iv/ when they appear before a voiced consonant or a vowel and /af/, /ef/ and /if/ otherwise (before voiceless consonants).[19][18]

Unlike Ancient Greek, which had a pitch accent system, Modern Greek has variable (phonologically unpredictable) stress. Every multisyllabic word carries stress on one of its three final syllables. Enclitics form a single phonological word together with the host word to which they attach, and count towards the three-syllable rule too. In these cases, primary stress shifts to the second-last syllable (e.g. αυτοκίνητό μου [aftoˌciniˈto mu] 'my car'). Phonetically, stressed syllables are longer, or carry higher amplitude, or both.[20]

The position of the stress can vary between different inflectional forms of the same word within its inflectional paradigm. In some paradigms, the stress is always on the third-last syllable, shifting its position in those forms that have longer affixes (e.g. κάλεσα 'I called' vs. καλέσαμε 'we called'; πρόβλημα 'problem' vs. προβλήματα 'problems'). In some word classes, stress position also preserves an older pattern inherited from Ancient Greek according to which a word could not be accented on the third-last syllable if the last syllable was long, e.g. άνθρωπος ('man', nominative singular, last syllable short), but ανθρώπων ('of men', genitive plural, last syllable long). However, in Modern Greek this rule is no longer automatic and does not apply to all words (e.g. καλόγερος 'monk', καλόγερων 'of monks'), as the phonological length distinction itself no longer exists.[21]

This sample text, the first sentence of Aesop's fable "The North Wind and the Sun" in Greek, and the accompanying transcription, are adapted from Arvaniti (1999, pp. 5–6).

• About the Greek Language – Harry Foundalis
• Segmentals and suprasegmentals in Modern Greek with pronunciation